Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Aboriginal Peoples
Issue 10 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Tuesday, December 11, 2001
The Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples met this day at 9:05 a.m. to examine access, provision and delivery of services, policy and jurisdictional issues, employment and education, access to economic opportunities, youth participation and empowerment, and other related matters.
Senator Thelma J. Chalifoux (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: We will begin our discussions. Welcome to each and every one of you. In my opinion, this is one of the most important action plans for change for urban Aboriginal people that we will see in the next while. We have been studied to death and do not need to be studied any longer; we need possible solutions and some action plans.
It was brought to my attention, and I am inclined to agree, that there are similarities with the "Black freedom" trains that came from the United States to Canada. When you look at the northern areas, you will see all the Black ghettos within the urban centres and the tragic things happening there. This is what is happening here with our own urban Aboriginal people. They are coming to the major centres in the South, and we are now seeing poverty occurring and the beginnings of gangs. It is just tragic.
This is why I think this action plan for change is so important.I understand and realize that government needs to look at the on-reserve situation, but less than 10 per cent of the Aboriginal people live on reserves. The majority are moving to the urban centres, where they are being ghettoized and marginalized by the mainstream. This is why your input is so important. Hopefully, we will have some ideas that we can share with each other about possibly looking at some of these situations.
Welcome to each and every one of you. I am looking forward to working with you in a partnership to address some of these important issues.
Mr. William F. Pentney, Deputy Head, Aboriginal Affairs Portfolio, Department of Justice Canada: It is a pleasure and honour for us to be here to share with you the experience that the Department of Justice has had in working with urban Aboriginal people. The deputy minister sends his regrets that he is unable to be here. However, he has sent along a small horde of us to speak about four different programs in the Department of Justice that seek to address the justice-related needs of urban Aboriginal people.
I am the Deputy Head of the Aboriginal Affairs Portfolio in the Department of Justice. I will provide the overview and then speak about the Aboriginal justice strategy. With me from the department are my colleagues: Patricia Begin, who is the Director of Research and Evaluation with the National Crime Prevention Centre in the Department of Justice; Catherine Latimer, who is the Director General of Youth Justice Policy of the Department of Justice; and Frances Pennell, who is the Director of the Policy Planning Division within the programs branch of the Department of Justice. Frances will be speaking about the native courtworker or Aboriginal courtworker program.
Madam Chair, the Government of Canada shares your acknowledgment that the situation of urban Aboriginal people is a significant and growing problem. We have brought some material, including a deck, that can be distributed to the committee. I would like to provide an overview of the situation of urban Aboriginal people in respect of the justice system.
The Chairman: We do not look at these as problems; we look at them as challenges.
Mr. Pentney: In the most recent Speech from the Throne, the Government of Canada spoke generally about the situation of Aboriginal people and offered a number of commitments on behalf of the people of Canada to take steps to improve it. In respect of the justice system, the government acknowledged the situation and made a specific commitment to seek to reduce Aboriginal people's contact with the justice system to the Canadian average within a generation.
That is a remarkable commitment because it sets a concrete target in terms of outcomes and time frames. That is the guidepost for the work done within the Department of Justice, working in partnership with other federal departments, provinces and territories, to try to achieve that goal. I will not repeat the statistics today. I am sure you are familiar with the tragic overrepresentation of Aboriginal people, particularly Aboriginal youth, in the justice system. There are two points I would like to underline about the data. The files to be distributed contain a deck that may assist the senators in going through the presentation.
The first point I would note about the data is that a large number of Aboriginal people are living in urban settings. The focus of most of the press reports has been on the number of Aboriginal offenders in urban settings. While I do not want to diminish that, the data also indicate that there are a tremendous number of Aboriginal victims, and that a large number of Aboriginal offenders are committing offences against other Aboriginal people. We do have a large offender population, but I wanted to underline the importance of remembering that there is also a large Aboriginal victim population living in urban settings.
The second point is that a large proportion of this population is young, and it appears to be growing far faster than the general Canadian population. The population bulge in the rest of the Canadian population is in the 30- to 40-year age range. The population bulge in the Aboriginal population is much younger than that, which poses a number of issues and challenges. We will speak to some of the justice programs that are seeking to address that particular situation.
In the area of justice, it is important to understand that the federal government defines what is a crime and the procedures by which crimes will be dealt with in the courts. However, the provinces are constitutionally responsible for the administration of justice.
[Translation]
As we know, there is a long standing debate on the issue of jurisdiction. Urban native people know that all problems are linked one way or another to the issue of jurisdiction.
In the program that we will describe today, we have attempted to find a solution to establish partnership with the provinces, territories, municipalities and urban native communities. We have tried to find a practical solution.
[English]
We are guided by the Social Union Framework, and in our different programs, we have sought to establish solid working partnerships to address the on-the-ground situation of urban Aboriginal people. Within the Department of Justice, we seek to work in a status-blind way with First Nation? Métis and Inuit people who live in the urban setting.
[Translation]
The Department of Justice created the Aboriginal Affairs Portfolio five years ago in order to better serve the government in the area of policy, court challenges and legal advice having to do with native people.
[English]
The Aboriginal affairs portfolio has taken a lead in trying to coordinate the department's efforts on the urban Aboriginal strategy, and within that portfolio we administer the Aboriginal Justice Strategy. We have worked closely with the Privy Council Office, the Office of the Federal Interlocutor, in respect of his responsibility for the urban Aboriginal strategy. As you will hear shortly, we are working closely with other federal, provincial and territorial departments, as well as a wide variety of Aboriginal service-delivery organizations, to deliver our programs.
Our challenge, which I am sure you have heard much about, is to work as effectively as we can and in a horizontal manner, while at the same time respecting the particular policy objectives for each of the initiatives. This challenge is not insurmountable; nevertheless, it is a significant one.
I will ask you to turn to slides 5 and 6 in our deck. We try to describe there, in a graphic manner, the broad range of programs that you will hear about today, and we also try to set them in the broader policy context.
Within the Department of Justice, we are guided by a broad number of federal policies, and also by some justice-specific policies, in the program work we are doing. We are also guided by Supreme Court of Canada decisions that have set out understandings of both the legal situation and the legal obligations.
If you turn to the next slide, you will see that we also work with a number of federal departments. The justice problem is primarily a challenge for the federal Department of Justice, working with the Solicitor General, the RCMP and Correctional Service of Canada, as well as with our provincial counterparts - attorneys general departments, police services, et cetera.
In seeking to address the situation of Aboriginal people in the justice system, we also need to work closely with Human Resources Development Canada, Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, Health Canada and related programs. On this slide, we try to describe some of the ways in which we have established these partnerships. I will not go into the details of how we work together. If you would like to pursue that in questions, that would be a welcome opportunity for us. We have tried to develop programs that seek to address the challenge of urban Aboriginal people and work in a horizontal and integrated way, to the extent possible.
I would like to spend a couple of minutes describing one such program. Then I will ask the others to describe their program initiatives. We hope that will leave plenty of time for questions.
The Aboriginal Justice Strategy is the centrepiece of the federal response to the situation of Aboriginal people, which has been noted in reports and studies dating back from before the royal commission report - although it was certainly underlined in that report. The strategy is a joint initiative of the Department of Justice and the Solicitor General. We also work closely with the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs and the Federal Interlocutor's office.
[Translation]
The Aboriginal Justice Strategy includes three components. The community justice program that is cost-shared with provinces and territories, the aboriginal justice learning network and the negotiations on self-government.
[English]
Our cost-shared programs would be of most interest to this committee. The objectives of the strategy are: first, to support Aboriginal communities as they take a greater responsibility for the administration of justice; second, to help reduce crime and incarceration rates in communities administering justice programs; and third, to improve the justice system to make it more responsive to the justice needs and aspirations of Aboriginal people.
[Translation]
Currently, the strategy supports 90 programs in290 communities, in the North, in the reserves and in urban settings.
[English]
I would like to give you a concrete example of how one such program operates. In the background material we have provided, there is a list of program summaries for a number of urban Aboriginal programs that the strategy supports. I would like to speak about the Regina Alternative Measures Program. This apre- and post-charge diversion program for urban Aboriginal youth and adult offenders. This program works under protocol agreements with police and crown attorneys in the city of Regina to try to find alternative ways of dealing with the problem of young offenders.
If a young person commits an offence, if it is a first or second offence and a relatively low level of offence in the criminal scale of things, there is an opportunity for that person to be diverted into the Regina Alternative Measures Program, before or after a charge is laid, either by the police or by the crown attorneys. RAMP operates under a community board that employs a number of individuals who will then work with these offenders to assess their case and their situation to determine if they are interested in pursuing an alternative process. If they are, then generally, a circle process will be organized involving the offender and his or her family and supporters, the victim and his or her family and supporters, and other members of the community.
The purpose of this process is to try to find a way of achieving reconciliation, healing and closure for the victims, and of ensuring that the offenders make reparations for the wrong done, acknowledge it, and develop a healing plan to deal with whatever their situation is.
We are trying, throughout this process, to build a bridge between the criminal justice system and social service and support agencies. These healing plans do not involve sitting down and working with a parole officer; they involve working with health and social services to deal with whatever particular problems have contributed to the offending behaviour.
These are not easy solutions. People who have committed relatively minor offences are sometimes involved in several years of intensive activity, whether that is anger management, drug or alcohol counselling, therapy, employment-related therapies or interventions. These efforts are trying to turn an individual's life around in a way that is more culturally authentic from an Aboriginal perspective, and also, in the end, save the system money.
It is clear that the criminal justice system, with the current recidivism rates, is successful at creating repeat business. We have been measuring these programs and some of them have been successful, though not all. This is a challenging environment. To the extent these systems are successful, they can achieve healing and reparations for the victim. That is not an apology from the offender to the victim for the wrong done, but rather an acknowledgement of it and an attempt to pay back some of what has been lost, if financial reparations are appropriate. It is also a way of turning the offender's life around in a culturally authentic manner that may have a lasting impact, for the betterment of the individual and society.
I could describe many more such programs that we are supporting, but I will ask Ms Pennell to speak about theNative Courtworker Program.
Ms Frances Pennell, Director, Policy Planning Directorate, Programs Branch, Department of Justice Canada: Honourable senators, I will speak to the Native Courtworker Program, which is the name that will be most familiar to you. We are about to rename it the Aboriginal Courtworker Program, so if I use the names interchangeably, you will understand why.
The Aboriginal Courtworker Program exists to enhance access to justice for Canada's Aboriginal people involved in the criminal system to ensure that they obtain fair, equitable and culturally sensitive treatment. Activities include: provision of advice and non-legal counselling, usually in the courtroom context; referral of the accused to various health and social agencies, as appropriate; referral to community alternative justice programs; and efforts to sensitize personnel in the formal criminal justice system to the unique needs and circumstances of Aboriginal people.
[Translation]
Among our ongoing federal, provincial, territorial cost-shared programs, this program is available to all Aboriginal people, regardless of their status or place of residency. The program has been funded by the Department of Justice since the late 1970s, and it exists in all jurisdictions except Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick.
[English]
The program is delivered, for the most part, by status-blind Aboriginal service agencies. For example, in Ontario, the Ontario Federation of Indian Friendship Centres delivers the program with support from the province and the federal government; in Alberta, it is done by the Native Counselling Services of Alberta. These organizations obviously recognize and reflect the diversity of Canada's Aboriginal population.
There is currently a total of 180 court workers across Canada. Approximately half of these are working in urban centres and half in remote and rural communities.
The current federal contribution to this well-established and reputable program is $4.5 million. Total expenditures on the program across the country generally run to about $11 million. This program initially served only adults, but it has also been serving youth since 1987. Today, approximately 25 per cent of the program clients are youth. However, as one might expect, there are different focuses from one province to another, or from one territory to another, in terms of the extent to which the court workers are involved. For example, in Quebec, where the social services agencies tend to take a more direct role in dealing with young offenders, the court worker will have a more limited role than in Manitoba, where dedicated court workers are working in the Manitoba Youth Centre.
That is a brief overview of the program, and I welcome questions.
Ms Catherine Latimer, Senior Counsel, Director General of Youth Justice Policy, Department of Justice Canada: Honourable senators, in 1999, the Minister of Justice launched the renewal of the broad Youth Justice Strategy. The strategy involves program support, partnerships and multi-disciplinary approaches to the problem of youth crime. It includes legislation that repeals the Young Offenders Act and, hopefully, replaces that act with new legislation. However, since the Senate has heard much about that bill of late, I will only say that the reason we have embarked on the renewal of youth justice generally is that our youth incarceration rates across the board are far too high. We have too many young people involved in the youth justice system. They are treated far more harshly, in many cases, than adults in similar circumstances. We are trying to establish a fairer and more effective youth justice system that constrains the use of the criminal law and finds more constructive alternatives for the vast majority of young people involved in less serious crime.
If the general incarceration rates for our youth are higher than in any other western developed country, those for Aboriginal youth are higher still. This is a particular problem within youth justice that we are endeavouring to address.
We have done a number of things. We have dedicated resources to Aboriginal community capacity building. We have funded about 50 projects so far to try to improve and support communities in dealing with their youth justice challenges.
We have also undertaken a number of initiatives to try to promote understanding and to share best practices. We feel that many Aboriginal communities have worked out effective justice programs and youth justice measures, and that it would be wise to share ideas from those who have come up with effective solutions to youth justice or youth crime problems with those who are in need. We hosted a three-day youth justice and skills exchange forum in Winnipeg. We invited representatives from communities with good justice programs, along with those from communities in need, to share best practices. We followed that with training opportunities. Those who had good programs would go to communities that did not and try to encourage and support them in developing effective programs.
We also held a number of round table discussions on Aboriginal youth and the proposed new legislation to see if we could encourage its effective implementation in a way that would be culturally relevant and work well for Aboriginal people. We were pleased that Senator Pearson was able to attend that round table.
For the purpose of continuing the sharing of knowledge and ideas, we developed a community Web site for those interested in youth justice programs. We are pleased that the Chair has joined our Web site. For any others who are interested in keeping abreast of developments, we would be pleased to have you join too.
Since we had quite narrow resources for funding community capacity building, we wanted to target those resources to communities in need. Earlier, we did a one-day "snapshot" of Aboriginal youth in custody in collaboration with our provincial and territorial colleagues. All the young people in custody on a specific day were asked what communities they were from originally, what communities they were in when they committed the offence that led to the period of incarceration, and to what communities they were proposing to return. We were hoping to come up with specific communities of need with the requisite number of young people to whom we could direct our resources to deal with those particular problems.
Not surprisingly, the study revealed a significant western, urban youth challenge, especially in Winnipeg. Certainly, Winnipeg is the gateway for young people into the youth incarceration system.
We are keen to address some of these problems and have established an interdepartmental working group to look at the matter. Since youth justice is sort of at the tail end of a whole series of problems that young people face, we felt we needed more of a partnership approach to deal in a more constructive way with some of these issues.
We have worked with our federal colleagues, many of whom have resources, as you know, directed to Aboriginal youth and Aboriginal urban youth, to find a more collaborative and synergistic way of working on these problems in certain centres.
On November 13, we met with community and federal representatives from departments located in Winnipeg that have money to see if we could begin to develop some more effective strategy for dealing with these particular problems. We are hopeful that we will be able to release the results of our one-day snapshot, as well as what we are calling a "cities project for Aboriginal youth," early in the new year. It will focus attention on these problems and begin to work collaboratively on the youth justice aspects.
Those are the elements I wanted to share with the committee this morning.
Ms Patricia Begin, Director, Research and Evaluation, National Crime Prevention Centre, Department of Justice: Madam Chairman, I am here to speak to you about the Government of Canada's federal strategy on crime prevention and community safety.
In 1993, the government created a national crime prevention strategy to work with provinces, territories and municipalities on community solutions to the underlying causes of crime, insecurity, victimization and delinquency. The National Strategy on Community Safety and Crime Prevention is the centrepiece of the Government of Canada's action plan to reduce crime by addressing its root causes and building stronger, healthier communities.
The strategy employs an approach to crime reduction known as "crime prevention through social development." This approach focuses on root causes. It addresses risk factors associated with crime and victimization and takes a long-term, proactive approach.
Crime prevention through social development addresses the personal, social and economic risk factors that lead some individuals to engage in criminal acts or to become victims of crime. Some of these include family factors, such as witnessing violence in the home or parental criminality; inadequate living conditions; individual personality and behavioural factors, such as the lack of problem-solving skills or critical reasoning; peer association, which would involve friends who follow a delinquent or criminal lifestyle; and school-related factors such as poor academic performance. This list of risk factors is meant to illustrate the cross-cutting nature of crime prevention through social development. The emphasis is on social and economic factors as well as on criminal issues.
The national strategy addresses primarily four priorities, which include children, youth, Aboriginal people living on or off reserve in rural and urban centres in Canada, and the personal security of women and girls. By providing knowledge, tools and resources, the national crime prevention strategy supports community-based crime and victimization prevention activities and interventions that focus on these priority populations.
The work is very much targeted toward high-risk, high-need communities. We are working hard with some of our partners in the Prairie cities to better address some of the challenges that confront urban Aboriginal people, particularly youth. One example of that is a program that we are currently supporting in the city of Winnipeg. It is called Ndaawin, or Our Place, and the sponsoring agency is New Directions for Children, Youth and Families. This is a multi-disciplinary, community-based project that focuses on urban Aboriginal children between the ages of8 and 13 who are at high risk of becoming involved in the child sex trade.
New Directions is a partnership between community residents, residents' associations, local police, local businesses, schools, and Aboriginal and non-aboriginal community development and social services agencies, including Winnipeg Child and Family Services. Referrals to the program mostly come from these organizations.
The initiative engages in a number of activities to address the issue of youth at risk of becoming involved in the sex trade. These include the use of an assessment tool that was developed to better identify associated risk factors and which is used by schools, social agencies, community associations and parents.
It also utilizes a response team to provide immediate support for and intervention with children who are identified as high risk. They have developed a prevention curriculum to meet the needs of children and youth in the schools. They have trained a team of peer counsellors who provide culturally relevant and authentic recreational, social and therapeutic activities and interventions for those high-risk children. Finally, they have developed a parent support group. They work with the parents who are raising children in circumstances that put these children at high risk for entering prostitution.
One thing we know from the literature on effective interventions with high-risk children is the importance of including the parents in the response to the issues and challenges that confront these children.
I will be happy to answer any questions.
Senator Pearson: I was particularly interested in your last comment, Ms Begin. On Friday, I will be heading to Yokohama to attend the Second World Congress Against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children. The Canadian delegation will be providing some examples of the work that we are trying to do on this issue. This example of what is happening in Winnipeg strikes me as particularly interesting. How long has it been going?
Ms Begin: It has been in operation for about a year. Very shortly, we expect a fairly detailed evaluation of the first year of operation. It will be mainly a process evaluation that describes the partnerships, the nature of the supports, and the referral mechanisms, both into the program and out to other services and agencies in the city.
Senator Pearson: Does this program deal primarily with prevention?
Ms Begin: It deals primarily with prevention. However, they are also trying to incorporate into the project youth who have limited experience, but who have become involved in the child sex trade. I have provided some background material that includes a more detailed description of this particular program and other urban Aboriginal programs.
Senator Pearson: I am interested in the assessment tool. Is there some literature about that in the package?
Ms Begin: No. I anticipate it will be included in the process evaluation report and I can certainly send that to you.
Senator Pearson: Are you using experienced youth to be peer counsellors?
Ms Begin: Yes. As much as possible, they are drawing upon the experiences of young people who have been involved in the sex trade.
Senator Hubley: Mr. Pentney, you indicated that we might ask about the key federal, provincial and territorial partnerships in the urban justice initiatives and how they interact. This subject was addressed on the sixth slide. I see HRDC, government, the parole board and the RCMP around the circle, with the Aboriginal communities in the centre. Using the RCMP as an example, could you explain how you interact and work together?
Mr. Pentney: Within the Aboriginal Justice Strategy, we have the Aboriginal Justice Learning Network, which seeks to provide a bridge between the mainstream system and Aboriginal communities generally, including urban Aboriginal communities.
We have undertaken a number of training initiatives with the RCMP. Where communities indicate that they want to set up a diversion program, we have been able to work with the RCMP to get their officers involved. They tend to be on the ground and have a real presence in many of these communities. We seek to have them participate in joint training initiatives. These things will not work if the mainstream system carries on as before. You can have the best-designed diversion program running in a community, but if the police or Crown counsel do not divert offenders into it, it will wither and die.
We have been able to undertake a number of joint initiatives with the RCMP to training both mainstream justice personnel and community members. The RCMP has taken an active role in trying to support family group conferencing, community justice forums and diversion programs. As a result of the widespread reach of the RCMP in the communities, that is a tremendous tool for us. We think we have been able to benefit them by supporting training initiatives. That is one example of how we are trying to work together to pursue the same goal.
Ms Latimer: Throughout the renewal process of youth justice, we have worked closely with our colleagues in the RCMP. As an example of involving them in a way that makes sense, I would refer to the meeting we had in Winnipeg. Even though Winnipeg is an urban centre and the RCMP often have more reach into some of the more local communities, they do have an anti-gang initiative in Winnipeg that addresses youth gangs. Aboriginal youth gang challenges are rife in Winnipeg. The RCMP brings to the table an understanding of the dynamics and how to work in the community, given the reality of youth gangs. We also work with the Winnipeg Native Alliance, which helps young people exit from youth gangs. It is important to invite the RCMP into a broader community partnership so that they know what tools are available to assist them with the challenges in the community.
Mr. Pentney: We are coordinating an interdepartmental committee on Aboriginal issues that focuses specifically on justice and includes representatives from these agencies. The RCMP is an active participant in our interdepartmental processes. It is important for us to share our initiatives with them and to know what initiatives they are undertaking in various parts of the country.
Senator Hubley: I was interested to learn that Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick do not participate in the court worker program. Why is that?
Ms Pennell: In P.E.I. and New Brunswick, the issues are a combination of need and a willingness of the province to provide the funding. The federal government generally comes in as a supporting partner. In an area of shared jurisdiction, the responsibility for the administration of justice, which is the broad umbrella under which these services operate, rests with the provinces.
We are not involved in discussions with Prince Edward Island and New Brunwick on a regular basis, but intermittently. When they are interested in proceeding with this program, we will be actively engaged with them in that discussion.
Senator Hubley: Are the provinces not taking what you might consider a proactive approach? Are they waiting for a problem to emerge? Do they feel they do not have a problem at present?
Ms Pennell: I would not say they do not feel they have a problem. Some of the roles that court workers play in other provinces are played, to a greater or lesser extent, by officials in the justice system in those provinces. It is a combination of the size of the problem, recognition of it and the priority any given government attaches to it.
Senator Léger: You gave us some statistics about young Aboriginals. Given all the specialists and interdepartmental activity, I sometimes wonder if we should be unifying services. Money must be allocated to these programs to keep them going.I see analyses for various years: 1993, 1970, 1995, 1987, 1991 and 2001. In the end, are these challenges diminishing? Is there really a partnership?
We have had so many meetings with Justice, Human Resources, Statistics Canada and other bodies. Three-quarters of the analysis is duplicated, and yet the Aboriginal challenge is not diminishing. Has any progress been made on these matters over the years?
Mr. Pentney: That is a question that troubles us as well. I am not sure we can say that the challenges are presently diminishing. I was talking to my daughter about this subject. My 14-year-old daughter was looking at some of the statistics as I was preparing for this meeting. She asked the same question: "Is it getting any better? You have been at this for a while."
I tried to explain that we think there have been some tremendous successes, but we do not want to underestimate the challenges. There are challenges in working together effectively, in ensuring that everyone is sharing the information and working in a unified way within their own programs toward the same goal. This is a challenge within the federal system. We are working with a multiplicity of provincial and municipal agencies.
There are a number of programs that are taking concrete steps and moving beyond analysis in trying to work on the ground to address particular problems. As we do that, there are more Aboriginal people moving to urban centres.
We know that poverty, homelessness, what is referred to euphemistically as "churn," which is a huge disruption in a person's life, and movement between reserves and cities are all increasing. While we are moving forward with a number of programs, we are aware that the challenges are not going away. Urban Aboriginal youth are not moving into an environment of high employment, of stable housing and social situations. We are trying to address some of the challenges at the same time that the population is growing.
I do not know that we can say that the challenge is diminishing. Government officials support programs, but communities drive them. Communities have come together in this way.
The other challenge we face is that, unlike on a First Nation reserve, where there is at least a band government, whatever might be said about any particular one - there is an organized structure there - in many urban settings, there is no community that identifies as a "community." There is no broad organizational structure. Communities have started to build these structures and take on these challenges and we are supporting them in doing that. However, I do not want to oversell that. I am not claiming that the tide has turned. The one-day snapshot does not indicate that it has.
Senator Léger: Do we have too many "specialists"? A lot of money is spent on all these specialists and on all these programs, but I feel there is no unity among them. I am not sure that we are tackling the issue in the right way.
Ms Latimer: You raise a very interesting issue. This is a huge and multi-faceted challenge. I have been in government for a long time and I have never seen better cooperation between departments, and federal-provincially, than on this particular issue. They all feel that individually, their contribution would have very limited input into the relatively huge challenge. It is only by working collaboratively that we can begin to get anywhere.
You probably have not seen many positive results because the challenge is so large. When we first started working in this field, it was clear that, if you hold constant for the issue of poverty, there is no overrepresentation of Aboriginals among those in conflict with the law. As long as there continues to be a gap in income that is differentially affecting Aboriginals, those of us working on the justice side will be playing catch-up. We have a real problem that our tools cannot adequately address. We work within constraints and do the best we can. The challenge is not to be underestimated. It is very easy to throw up your hands and say, "Nothing works. We are not getting anywhere. Let us not do anything." In my view, it is better to try.
Senator Léger: I certainly agree with that. My concern is how we get together and organize ourselves. I am not just talking about the Aboriginal issue here. For example, in health, I sometimes feel that we are preoccupied with the doctors, the nurses, the system, et cetera, and the patient is at the end of the queue. That is what I was questioning here.
Senator Cochrane: I have quite a few questions. Mr. Pentney, you mentioned that you have community-based programs in about 290 communities in the North, on reserves and in urban settings. How do these programs meet the needs of the people they are meant to serve? How does a community-based program on reserve compare to one in an urban setting?
Mr. Pentney: You can compare them in many different ways. Many of the structures are the same. These community programs are not administered on reserve by band governments. They are administered by outside organizations. The programs originate with people in the community saying, "Justice is a problem for us. We want to do something about it and be more actively involved in it." They stem from communities saying, "We are tired of justice being done to us. We want justice done for us, with us and by us." They originate with people who have a desire to become involved in the justice system. This may be because of an offender or victim background - their own or that of a family member - or seeing the disruption in the community.
The problems can be different, depending on the location. For example, some of the First Nation reserves are right next to urban settings. We often tend to think of reserves as remote and isolated, and we are dealing with some isolated communities. They have their own challenges, such as removal from the community. If a serious offence is committed - generally by a man - he is taken out of the community, sent somewhere else, and then plopped back into the community two or three years later after he has served his time.
In urban settings or on reserves that are near cities, the problems and challenges are different. At the end of the deck, we indicate that one of challenges is the institutional capacity.First Nations on reserve have an identifiable population base and a community, and they generally identify as a community from the beginning. In urban settings we may have Métis service-delivery organizations, First Nation service-delivery organizations, and some that are pan-Aboriginal, which can present an organizational challenge.
The other point is that although people move on and off reserve, there tends to be a more stable population base, a core of people who remain on reserve. In urban settings, our experience, and that of other program-delivery agencies, has been that that is not the case. The population is moving much more frequently. Even if they are not leaving the city, they are moving around within it, and that in itself can pose a number of challenges.
There are probably more commonalities than differences. How do they serve the needs of the community? The community can decide whether it wants to focus on adult or young offenders, or whether it wants to use a circle process and divert people before they come to a criminal trial. However, some communities have decided that the offender should go through a trial, but they then say, "We want a circle sentence. We do not want the judge sitting up on a bench delivering the sentence. We want the trial to go ahead, the guilty plea to be made - usually - and then we want to be involved in the sentencing."
We have a few communities that have decided that, in addition, they would like to be involved in different ways of administering child welfare. The young offenders law applies at age 12. For children under the age of 12, they would like to try to nip the problem in the bud through different ways of supporting families and children in need before they come under the child welfare or child protection legislation, and from there, often graduate into the young offender legislation.
Senator Cochrane: Is the community deciding that?
Mr. Pentney: These are the communities. We can support programs that correspond to what we have called the four pillars. The communities are making those decisions and also continually deciding what works well.
Ms Latimer talked about the youth skills exchange. We have done the same thing to get communities that want to be involved in these programs together with those that are administering them. We have held a series of workshops out west, and most recently in Thunder Bay. We are planning to hold another, if circumstances permit.
Senator Cochrane: Who is taking the lead in these communities to get this going?
Ms Latimer: That is an interesting question. In our view, and I do not know whether Mr. Pentney has had the same experience, it is often an individual who cares about these issues and who motivates the entire community. It does not necessarily go through the official political structure, although you generally need the concurrence of that structure. It is often individual personalities who say, "We are going to make this work," and they do.
In many ways, it is hard to duplicate in certain communities because you have to find that kind of energetic, community-spirited person who can carry it and not get discouraged. That is why we established this community Web site. It is very tiring to take on that leadership and people can become discouraged.
Senator Cochrane: Or burnt out.
Ms Latimer: The Web site is a way of trying to reinforce their experiences. I do not know whether others have had the same experience.
Ms Begin: In a number of our projects, particularly in remote communities in the North or in the northern part of the Prairies, the catalysts have tended to be people in the community with a specific job - such as the principal of a school or the RCMP officer or a public health nurse - who finds themselves responding to a whole range of issues, including coming into conflict with the law, because a child may be living in a home where there is domestic violence or exposure to substance abuse, or may be actually abusing substances at a young age. They are often the ones who will try to mobilize other people in the community to come to the National Crime Prevention Centre with an idea they would like us to help them develop into a proposal for support for an intervention.
Senator Cochrane: Research in the U.S. indicates that imprisonment of gang members is ineffective at best, and counterproductive at worst.
Preventing gang membership in the first place is easier than removing people from the gang once they are in it.
What preventive programs or measures are in place to reduce the likelihood of young Aboriginal people joining gangs? Has there been any evaluation of which types of programming have proven to be the most and least effective?
Ms Begin: From my knowledge of some of the current initiatives in Canada to support Aboriginal people, I would point to the Aboriginal Head Start program as probably one of the best examples. In the United States, a head start program was put in place to test a model to support high-risk, disadvantaged urban Black children and their families. When the program was introduced, a randomized control group was established. Basically, certain people were identified randomly to enter the program and certain others were to be part of the control group. In this way, the effects and the impacts of this program on the experimental population could be measured. They have been tracking the children who went through this program for over 20 years. Some of the findings are amazing. The children who had access to the program were much less likely to get pregnant as teenagers, to drop out of school or to be charged with juvenile delinquency offences. They were more likely to go to university, to have jobs and to stay out of the criminal justice system.
Most child development experts, and certainly many criminologists, are now coming to the conclusion that early childhood intervention is probably one of the more effective mechanisms for supporting children and families and providing them with options.
Ms Latimer: Your researchers were absolutely on the money with that question, senator.
We find that many young people are actually recruited into gangs through their correctional experience, which reinforces their gang alliances. We have been conscious of supporting programs for reintegration that try to help young people exit gangs, which is difficult for them to do.
As for why they join gangs in the first place, it is important to ask gang members. You would find that they get some psychological nurturing from their gang membership that others might gain from family relationships. They are getting something they need from the gang experience. We need to figure out what that is and try to provide it, whether through effective peer mentoring with kids who are not in gangs, or through enhanced recreational actives. Many kids say they were bored. Surprisingly, many of them feel threatened. They feel like potential victims. They feel they need this kind of membership for their own personal security.
Normally, people look at youth and see them as potential problems, whereas youth often tend to think of themselves as potential victims and feel vulnerable. We need to get to these kids early. We need to provide whatever it is that is missing in their circumstances through more pro-socially motivated or guided opportunities for them.
Senator Cochrane: Is that one of the objectives now within your portfolio, especially with the budget just having been delivered? We have some new funding. Will it be used in any way to help this situation?
Ms Latimer: Thankfully, there is $185 million for Aboriginal children included in this budget. They are looking at some FAS, FAE and head start type programs that could be useful. These feelings of insecurity and predisposition toward gang involvement start early. We will be working with colleagues on these issues.
Senator Cochrane: Do we have many gangs in this country among Aboriginal groups?
Ms Latimer: People are concerned that the gang phenomenon not be exaggerated. There are certain pockets in the country where there are pronounced gang challenges. Winnipeg is one of them. This is not a new phenomenon. There have been Aboriginal gangs in Winnipeg for a very long time. Whether or not their membership is increasing is a different issue. I suspect that kids are identifying with gangs. It is certainly a challenge that we need to address. There are other communities where you would not find Aboriginal or any other kind of gangs.
Mr. Pentney: The gang problem should not be seen primarily as an Aboriginal issue.
Senator Cochrane: I did not mean to suggest that.
Mr. Pentney: In Winnipeg, and some other western cities, you will hear a pronounced concern from police about the increasing attraction of youth to gang membership.
Senator Cochrane: Statistics indicate that among Aboriginal people, it is overwhelmingly men who commit crimes. Aboriginal women account for almost one-quarter of the female inmate population. What differences exist between young male Aboriginal offenders and young female Aboriginal offenders? Is there any analysis of these differences? Does your department have any programs or policies that directly target Aboriginal women?
Ms Begin: We know from the research that the two most significant risk factors associated with coming into conflict with the law are being young and being male. Historically, the difference between female and male participation in criminal activity has always been there. That gap has always existed.
Within the national strategy, one of our priorities focuses on the personal security of women and girls. We know from research on women who come into conflict with the law and are federally incarcerated that the vast majority have suffered significant physical and sexual abuse and domestic violence. We are working with our partners in a number of jurisdictions. There is an example of one project in the materials that I provided that is taking place in the city of Calgary. It provides support and treatment to women and children who come into contact with the police through domestic violence situations in which, typically, the woman is the victim and the children have witnessed violence in the home.
Mr. Pentney: Earlier, you asked who runs these programs. Women drive about 80 per cent of our programs in communities. The interesting thing is that many of the divergence programs we are running deal with women. One reason for that is many young Aboriginal men have committed too many offences to be considered for these programs. Thus, they are screened out of the programs, because under most provincial policies, these types of programs are not available to what they would term "hardened offenders." Many of our programs deal with women. Again, this is an opportunity to find out why the woman ended up in an offending situation, what can be done to help her turn her life around and find the range of community supports to assist in that.
There are discernible patterns. There are differences in patterns, as you have indicated. A number of our programs are trying to work with Aboriginal women to help them change the offending behaviour.
One of the issues for men who have committed many more offences is that most of the divergence type programs available to them are those run by Correctional Services Canada.
I do not know if the Solicitor General has appeared before you yet, but Correctional Services Canada is particularly focused on how to work with Aboriginal men to reintegrate them back into the community in a more positive way.
Ms Latimer: The statistics make it clear that female criminality, and particularly female youth criminality, is entirely different from male criminality. Female criminality tends to peak at about age 15 and then starts to fall off. That poses specific challenges for us in coming up with effective ways of dealing with those young people so they do not define themselves as criminals and have ongoing problems.
Young people are charged more often than others with administration of justice failures. Twenty-five per cent of young people are in custody because they did not respect conditions of probation and bail conditions. Females are also more likely not to abide by particular conditions and suffer the consequences.
Serious and violent offenders are overwhelmingly male. However, we do need more programs tailored to Aboriginal females. While your numbers are telling you that females generally are less inclined to be involved in the system, when they are, the Aboriginal population is overly represented. We need to look at relevant ways to deal with female Aboriginal youth. That is an entirely different phenomenon.
Senator Cochrane: We should probably be dealing with the source of the problem within the family background, and education would be a good thing there. We could educate the children, and the parents, through whatever appropriate system. Maybe we can solve these challenges before they go further, while the children are young.
Mr. Pentney: Crime prevention needs to be connected to and supported by early childhood intervention. We see the products of dysfunctional families and communities who are trapped in a cycle and reproducing intergenerational challenges.
As we indicated in our comments, we can do a certain amount to ensure that the justice system does not increase the harm and that it is helping people to turn their lives around. However, the major part of the investment, as the budget would indicate, must go into better health, education and family outcomes.
The Chairman: Statistics Canada appeared before us the other night and said that there were four serious "hot spots" in Canada for Aboriginal people. I was really surprised to hear that Thunder Bay was one of them. The others were Winnipeg, Regina and Saskatoon, closely followed by Edmonton. Do you look at those statistics to see where your programs would be most relevant?
Ms Begin: Yes, we do. We are working closely with some of our counterparts at the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. They are helping us to identify profiles of communities, urban as well as smaller communities, and put together statistics on the number of single-parent families, the number of people on social assistance, the unemployment rate, the youth crime rate and a number of other socio-economic, demographic indicators that would help us to better focus and target our resources.
Ms Latimer: The results of our one-day snapshot are in sync with what Statistics Canada told you. Winnipeg placed first, Thunder Bay was second, and then a community up north was third.
The Chairman: Regina and Saskatoon are right up there with Thunder Bay and Winnipeg; it is absolutely scary.
On the subject of native court workers, when that was first established in Alberta, there were several organizations involved, and they ended up becoming what we called "Aboriginal empires." As the communities grew and developed, they felt that the Native Courtworker Program in Alberta was not working in their best interests. You cannot have an empire with court workers working out of Red Earth, Peace River or down south. The agencies and the reserves want to establish their own services within their own communities. Is that happening? I am finding that it is increasingly more urgent that we do that.
Some offenders with whom I have spoken said that native counselling services do nothing for them. In checking that, I find that some of the court worker services are doing community development as well. How do you evaluate the services that these Aboriginal agencies are providing?
Ms Pennell: In Alberta, as you know, Madam Chair, there is currently one large agency and four or five smaller ones. We must be careful, when delivering or getting involved in supporting a program like this, to allow the provinces, who are providing the lion's share of the funding, the latitude that they expect to make decisions about appropriate delivery and who is best suited to do that.
The Native Courtworker Program is delivered in different ways across the country. In Alberta, there is the large umbrella organization and there are four smaller ones. We think the province may be moving to expand that program and deliver it in a slightly different fashion in terms of the number of delivery agencies. However, I cannot give you a definitive statement on that now.
We have an ongoing tripartite working group concerned with the program, where it is going and the kind of issues that must be developed. We do have representation from all delivery agencies in that forum. Although not every agency is represented, we try to ensure that the voices of different communities and different viewpoints within the program are heard.
One of the problems with the Native Courtworker Program is that it has been around for a long time and was last formally evaluated a decade ago. We are about to embark on an evaluation of that program. There will be a number of challenges in determining how to measure success in a program like this, because numbers served may or may not be a good thing. The fact that there may be more people availing themselves of the service may not mean that there are more people coming into contact with the justice system. That may be a positive indicator that more people are becoming aware of the services and are using them in a way that we hope results in positive outcomes.
We are working closely with the court workers and our provincial counterparts to design an evaluation that will give us some clear indicators of where this program is working well, where there are gaps that need to be addressed and how we can do that.
Senator Carney: Madam Chairman, what do you mean by "empire building?"
The Chairman: A huge corporation is an empire.
Senator Carney: I am not familiar with the court worker system.
How does it get to be an empire? What happens to it?
The Chairman: I can only speak for Alberta. Years ago, Chester Cunningham and some of our Aboriginal leaders first organized the native court worker services. It was based in Edmonton, but as the years went by, it expanded into communities all across Alberta and was all managed from that one central office out of Edmonton. They really expanded into almost an empire. They serviced all the communities, and then as the communities grew, developed and became more educated, they felt they could handle it on their own, and that is where the challenge came. It almost ended up being a political battle. The provincial and federal governments, in my opinion, thought that it was much easier to fund one agency than many smaller ones, and they went along with it. That is what it created, senator.
Mr. Pentney: One of the spin-off benefits of having such an enduring program is it provides a foundation. I wanted to mention, to pick up on the point about Thunder Bay, that the Aboriginal Justice Strategy is supporting the Thunder Bay Aboriginal Community Council program, which grew out of the Thunder Bay Friendship Centre and was built on the foundation of the court work. It is different in the sense that it is operating outside the court, but the court worker program in Thunder Bay was the catalyst and the foundation on which those community programs were built. We think that can happen in other centres as well.
The Chairman: That is what we are looking at here. Agencies are saying, "We can do it ourselves now." It is a spin-off. The only problem is with the funding process. That is the issue here. How do you fund smaller agencies?
Several years ago, I was asked to start an Aboriginal young women's group through our own Métis urban housing program. It was very badly needed. I found that the women did not feel comfortable in the WIN houses. They did not feel comfortable in the sexual assault centres. They felt isolated and alienated, and this was why they did not go there. Or they went and they left.
When they came to the little group - and I did it in an Aboriginal way, combining Métis and Cree culture - I found that every woman, when she spoke, had experienced violent physical abuse and rape. This is what our young girls are witnessing within their homes. It is sad that in the young offenders centre in Edmonton - and I have not been there for about three years, but I used to go as an elder - the number of young girls is increasing. We are finding that they are increasingly violent. I know of one young girl who, with three others, stole a truck. They got in and used knives to threaten the driver. I am talking about 13- and 14-year-old girls.
I am at loss to see how many of the programs are helping. In that one case I followed through, she went to a sentencing circle because she was a first-time offender, but it was such a violent offence. One of the conditions of her sentence was that she had to go to another school and talk about what she did and how it affected her life. She asked me if I would attend, and I did. The change in that young girl, because she had to face her peers and talk about what she had done, was amazing. The sentencing circles are very important, especially for first-time offenders, but your department also has to consider developing programs relevant to young women, and women generally, who feel totally isolated and not connected to the general public and the services. No matter how well-meaning the service organizations are, they are not filling the bill.
Have you looked at that? Have you looked at developing programs like that within your jurisdiction?
Ms Latimer: You are raising the interesting point that victims will sometimes act out later and become aggressive. It is a connection that we have recognized and often look at, particularly in our under-12 strategy. We have been looking at aggressive behaviour, victims and crime prevention in a gestalt, to see if we cannot deal with the whole complex together.
There is something about viewing violence or being subjected to violence that increases your tolerance for violent activity in a way that is not helpful. These are complex issues, and certainly for young people who do become involved in the criminal justice system because they perpetrated violence, we are keen to develop responses that are meaningful for them. We are trying to encourage the voice of the young person, so that the response is in some way relevant to his or her individual circumstance, which is a challenge. It is a challenge that we have to embrace. One of the major criticisms of the existing youth justice systems under the YOA is that young people did not find them meaningful or relevant to them. That is something we need to break through, so they do have a perception that what happened was fair and just, that they paid for that misdeed and can move on in a constructive and socially useful way. It is an ongoing challenge.
The Chairman: I would like to ask you whether you attempt to bring about any attitude changes within the bureaucratic system, within the RCMP or whoever you deal with, on latent racism.I will give you an example - and I want to speak to this in the Senate.
In a smaller community in Saskatchewan, a little 12-year-old girl was drugged and raped by three nice, young, white farm boys. They would not allow the girls' parents in the courtroom because they did not want the nice young white boys - who happened to be between 20 and 25, so they are men - facing the family. They were let out on their own recognizance because they are such nice people.
To everyone's knowledge - and I talked about it yesterday at a meeting - that little girl has had no counselling, no support, and the attitudes of the justice system and the police in that community have labelled her as a nothing.
I would like to know exactly what the justice system, your department, does to address the latent racism that is rampant in this country.
Mr. Pentney: I am familiar with the case from some recent press reports. I cannot speak to the specific case, but I would like to tell you about a few things we have tried to do.
One of the goals of the Aboriginal Justice Strategy is to support communities and become more involved, and also to support better education about, and greater awareness of, the particular challenges facing Aboriginal people in the mainstream justice system. I will not call it the "traditional" system, because it is not. We have supported working with the RCMP on something called the "Aboriginal perceptions training," which is designed to try to give mainstream justice personnel some awareness of Aboriginal perceptions of the world, Aboriginal perceptions of law enforcement, and some of it is surprising.
In some communities, the most keenly felt harm does not come from the RCMP officer, but from the fishery and wildlife officer who may have arrested an elder for hunting a moose or some such thing. Something that in the criminal justice scheme would be seen as relatively insignificant is the source of a great deal of pain in the community. We have tried to work with our provincial and territorial partners to increase awareness within the justice system of different ways of viewing the world and different ways of experiencing the justice system through that kind of training.
The Aboriginal Justice Learning Network has an advisory council that includes police officers, judges and crown attorneys. We try to work with them to increase awareness in the mainstream system about the situation.
The Chairman: Have you considered using respected elders within that circle?
Mr. Pentney: We have an elders panel, including a number of respected elders. During the couple of years I have been working in this area, one thing I have heard again and again is that the elders themselves are facing challenges in carrying on the variety of responsibilities that they are being called on to shoulder. Having said that, we do work with elders to try to involve them in our decision-making processes and also in our educational activities. It was recently announced that there would be a commission on Aboriginal justice in Saskatchewan, which the province will be supporting. We will be monitoring that closely. We work actively in Saskatchewan, but I cannot speak to that particular challenge.
The Chairman: We do not expect you to. There are many Aboriginal gangs, some formal, such as the Indian Posse and the Warriors, and others very informal. I am finding that they are imploding, with gang members fighting their own people. We had a case in Edmonton - I am sure you are aware of it - where a little boy was beaten so badly that they had to use fingerprints to identify him. It turned out to be a gang-related initiation thing.
Not only that, but in Manitoba, the Hells Angels are openly recruiting our young children on reserves. We have serious issues in Kahnesatake that are affecting the children, the youth and the elders. I find that being a gang member can give a child an identity. When you move from the communities to a larger centre, suddenly, to be an Indian is bad and to have a different coloured skin is bad. It has been going on for generations. I went through the same thing. My children and my grandchildren are going through it now.
How does the justice system deal with the cultural needs of the youth to help them develop their own identity and be proud of who they are? I think that is the crux of many issues, and many of my fellow elders feel the same way. Are you providing any funding for those types of programs within the communities?
Mr. Pentney: It is a very important point. As these community justice programs have begun to develop, we are finding that a large part of what they want to do goes way beyond what we would normally do in the justice system. It is trying to reconnect not just youths, but also adults, with a cultural and spiritual tradition. We support a number of programs whose primary healing tool is to send kids out with elders and others to land camps, to get them on the land.
We had a positive experience this summer at Burnt Church, where the Crime Prevention Centre and some others supported three on-the-land camps to give children something positive to do during the summer and reconnect them with their particular cultural traditions. That is not connected to any particular diversion program. It is an activity we see as leading to a more positive outcome for those kids.
A great number of our diversion programs see the involvement of elders and learning about spiritual traditions as a very important part of the healing. Getting kids out of urban settings or off a reserve and back out onto the land can be a positive thing. That has been a large part of our programming, particularly in the North. We are working to support cultural traditions.
That is probably the best example of the way in which these justice programs lead us to go far beyond the ordinary criminal justice system. It should be noted that priests are generally involved just before a prisoner is taken off to death row. Other than that, spirituality has not been a large part of the administration of justice in modern times.
It is a clearly identified need within the Aboriginal communities. The involvement of elders has been important. Getting kids out of their particular setting and into one where they can be introduced to a different tradition is something that more and more communities want to do.
The Chairman: I want to give you one example. We tried that several years ago with one of our trappers. We took three young boys who had been into trouble out to the trap line. However, two of them just took off after two days. They were not having anything to do with it. The other kid stayed and learned. You have to be careful whom you take out there.
Senator Carney: I have been looking at the eight pages of statistics prepared by the Library of Parliament, which is doing its usual wonderful job. Those show that the incidence of violent crime, sexual assault and serious assault in the Aboriginal population is higher than in the non-Aboriginal. Is the incidence of alcohol-related crimes higher in the Aboriginal population than the non-Aboriginal? Are alcohol-related crimes reflected in this higher incidence of crimes in the Aboriginal population, and if so, how are you dealing with that in the justice system?
Mr. Pentney: I would not want to speak authoritatively, but instinctively, we would say that alcohol-related crime is likely to be higher in the Aboriginal community. I have not seen particular data on it. In the Aboriginal Justice Strategy and the community justice programs that we are supporting, when identifying a healing plan, a large part of it, unfortunately, involves alcohol or drug counselling for people as part of their recovery. It is certainly an issue.
When we talk to Health Canada officials, they say they know where communities are developing these programs because the demand for addictions counselling generally goes up as a consequence of the activities of these community justice committees. They are referring individuals for drug or alcohol counselling as a major part of their recovery plan. We could certainly check and get back to you if we can identify some data that specifically focused on alcohol-related crimes.
Ms Begin: To my knowledge, the best information related to the association between substance abuse or consumption of alcohol and offending would be from surveys with adult federal correctional inmates. We find that there is a very high incidence of alcohol and/or drugs involved in the offence, either coincident with the offence or leading up to its commission, amongst Aboriginal people.
Senator Carney: I think those statistics used to be collected. It seems to me that if you are looking for results in the healing process or in the justice system and you do not deal with the issue of substance abuse - if it is a factor - you will not be as successful as you might wish to be. Can you look for those statistics and get back to us? Perhaps just the reduction of substance abuse would lower your rates of violent crimes and spousal abuse. I know that is true in the Northwest Territories.
Senator Christensen: Are you seeing a marked increase in the use of community sentencing circles within the community justice programs? Are more people becoming involved in the sentencing circles at the community level?
Mr. Pentney: Over the last five years, there has been a tremendous increase. When the Aboriginal Justice Strategy began in 1996, we were planning to support 20 to 25, perhaps up to 30, programs, including a mix of urban, on reserve and off reserve, as the interest was there. As you will see, we are now supporting90 separate programs serving 290 communities. In consultations over the last couple of years, it has become clear that there is a thirst for more, particularly in the West, where the provinces have identified this as a specific challenge, and in the territories. There are more communities trying to get involved. They are looking at getting involved in different ways.
One of the interesting things arising from this consultation is that we found a number of communities saying, "We are not sure that sentencing circles are working. We have been using them for a while. We are tired. When we see the same person for the third time in the circle, we have to ask ourselves if it works." The communities are doing the research and evaluation and saying, "We have to step back, pause and think about what kind of intervention could work." There is an increasing interest in it. Justice is seen as a vehicle to assist communities in achieving their own healing. I think there is a more widespread interest in it. The success of the other programs is an indication that we are responding to a need that is coming from the communities.
Senator Christensen: You touched on my second question. In the communities that want the programs, there are ongoing demands on those who supervise or give support to these young people in need. Communities do get burned out. As you pointed out, very often it is one person who gets this going. Suddenly, everyone is overwhelmed when three or four persons need support. As a result, people start dropping out, you end up with that one person trying to carry the whole load and the whole thing starts to fall apart. I presume that is happening.
Ms Latimer: In some of these really troubled communities you may not find anybody who is able to begin it or sustain it. It is a significant challenge to find that infrastructure. There is bound to be somebody there. If it is in a northern community, the RCMP will be there. However, they may fly in once a week and then fly out again. As a result, there is no continuity in the community. Some of these communities present real challenges in terms of straight capacity building and having someone there who can even begin to maintain it. It was one of the challenges we faced with our skills exchange. In some of the communities, follow-up was not possible because there was no one who could begin and carry on a youth justice program. It is a huge challenge. We do not know whether you can take people from other communities and move them in, or what would work. If you have any ideas, we would be more than delighted to receive them because this is a huge problem, particularly in the more remote areas.
Senator Christensen: Where you are getting the communities involved, is that happening in the urban areas as well as in the rural areas, where there are established communities?
Ms Latimer: Hearkening back to our experience in Winnipeg, Winnipeg is an interesting city because the extent of its problems is matched by the number of people who are keen and able. Somehow, the resources and needs are not necessarily linking up with the services that are in place. The gaps, and how to bridge them, have not been well identified. Ottawa's homelessness initiative is keen to provide support to centres like Winnipeg.
In terms of youth justice, we have a real problem with pre-trial detention. Far too many kids are in custody pending their trials. If we had some kind of shelter or home, perhaps we could keep more kids out of custody. You have to combine the need in the justice system with the capacity in HRDC's homelessness initiative to try to link up these initiatives. In fact, in some of the urban centres, you need to build the infrastructure at the local level so that you can begin to work more collaboratively.
Mr. Pentney: We have found that building these urban programs requires more time because, in a sense, it is helping the Aboriginal community to identify itself as a community and then to build some of the infrastructure and make the connections. We are also working with federal regional councils, particularly in the major western centres, which bring together the full range of federal departments that operate, for example in the city of Winnipeg, to try to provide a window, at least from the federal perspective, on what is going on and what partnerships are available with the municipality, the province and local organizations.
In these workouts that we have been able to organize, we have been putting together communities that have been doing this for a while with communities that are interested. Those communities that have been in these programs for a while place a lot of emphasis on ensuring that their workers get healthy themselves and have a support network. The communities have identified this need not to rely on the one hero who will burn out doing this, and to make sure there is ongoing support and opportunity for cultural and other activities for the workers within the program so they can maintain their own spiritual health.
Senator Christensen: With regard to the community-based programs, you say 90 agreements have been serving290 communities. What percentage of these programs serve urban Aboriginals?
Mr. Pentney: I am sorry, but I do not have a particular percentage. We are estimating 10 to 12 per cent would serve urban programs. Having said that, some of them serve large urban populations. In terms of the number of clients they are dealing with, it is a different ratio.
The Regina Alternative Measures Program can deal with thousands of people, whereas a single program serving a Northwest Territories community might be serving a handful in a year.
Senator Christensen: How does that compare with the on-reserve program?
Mr. Pentney: We have a number of programs on reserve as well. The reality is that they tend to serve smaller populations. The development of urban-based programs has been a particular challenge in terms of the time and the investment required, for all the reasons we talked about.
Senator Christensen: Are those 290 communities more rural?
Mr. Pentney: Yes, more rural and on-reserve communities than urban communities.
Senator Pearson: I am interested in the issues of young girls, as well as the issues of sexual exploitation and the problems related to sexuality in the adolescent population, to say nothing of the older people who abuse these young people.
We know the more we study an issue the more complex it becomes. I do not see, for example, health on your community chart, unless it is disguised under something else. I am conscious of Senator Carney's comment about alcohol-related activity. To some extent, you would see fetal alcohol syndrome as part of the alcohol-related components of justice. I am glad to see the new money that was offered last night in the budget. I am hoping that some of that will go into research, as well as into programs.
The sentencing circle ties it all together. If, because of a neurological disorder, you are not capable of understanding the consequences of your actions, no matter how many times you are told, then perhaps the sentencing circle is not the way to go. Perhaps you have to think of some other way of doing it, not only for Aboriginals but for others as well. We need to know more about that. How much is sexual behaviour related to fetal alcohol syndrome? Does it really reduce inhibitions? Does it make it impossible for young people to understand the limits on or the appropriateness of their behaviour?
That leads me to one comment: We always have a down side to the good side. When I looked at some of these programs in the North taking people back to the land, I also heard that there have been cases of children being sexually abused during these "healing experiences. I do not know how you deal with that, but it is something you need to be aware of as you look at the appropriateness of that particular activity.
Coming back to Ms Latimer on the subject of statistics on female youths in the justice system, you spoke about "administrative offence." Have you any idea how many of those young women are in the system because of sex-related offences?
Ms Latimer: I have looked into the numbers to determine how many young people are charged with soliciting per year. I was surprised. In the highest year, there were more than 400 young people charged with soliciting, and it went down to about190 charges per year. There is a big chunk of young people who are exploited in the sex trade who are being charged with that offence.
We are quite interested in exploring alternative and extra-judicial ways of dealing with some of this behaviour rather than further victimizing the young people by putting them back through the justice system. We are planning to have a round table discussion on some of the alternatives to soliciting charges and how to deal with these things more constructively.
We are working closely with the police. One of the options that we have given to the police is front-end discretion to refer young people out to community programs, or something completely different, as opposed to proceeding through the youth justice system. That may work well for some of these FAS/FAE kids if we find that they do not understand the causal links. You are right, senator, we will have to find other ways to deal with their behaviour challenges.
Soliciting raises an interesting point. We had an interdepartmental meeting to look at alternative ways of dealing with soliciting issues. They were looking at a number of pilot projects across the country. In Winnipeg, the police are anxious to refer young people to something other than the criminal justice system. There might easily be a police referral to a more effective program that involves experiential youth and their efforts to try to deal with problems that they know from the inside. We need to think about more constructive ways to deal with some of those issues. I can get you those numbers.
Senator Pearson: That would be helpful.
You might have something to follow up with on that because of the program in Winnipeg. I do not know if that is the program that Penny Sinclair is involved with, where Winnipeg is presenting her with a house to help her deal with exiting young people. Ms Sinclair is an ideal example of an Aboriginal woman with experience, who has turned her life around and become a tremendous role model for the others. These are the kinds of things we need to look at, as we need to look at sustainability. It is fine to have a project, but how are you ensuring, in your long-term plans, that it will be sustainable in the future?
Ms Begin: Sustainability is a significant challenge, particularly in a context where core funding of projects and programs is not on.
We try to work with the sponsors of projects we are supporting under the crime prevention strategy to think about, right at the outset, the sustainability issue, to work, while they are delivering the project and while the results are coming in, to broaden their partnerships and the buy in, particularly at the local level. As crime prevention through social development touches on so many issues that are within the jurisdiction of the provinces, we engage the provinces right from the beginning and ensure that we have their interest and support. They know that people may be looking to them down the road to pick up the funding of the particular intervention. This is a big question, and it is something that we are working on and endeavouring to develop a further policy statement on that will assist us and the communities that we support.
Mr. Pentney: We are spending a significant amount of money on the administration of justice in Canadian society. Part of the issue for these programs is to see the extent to which they have integrated into the ordinary way of delivering justice. We are speaking about Aboriginal people, and there are cultural differences and circumstances that need to be respected.
Restorative justice is an approach that is effective for all people who come into contact with the law, in the right circumstances. Partly, the challenge is to continue to raise the profile of and work with the mainstream system, so that those who are involved in planning and looking at the administration of the system see that, for at least a certain group of offenders and potential offenders, this type of intervention will be more cost-effective in the long run. We are doing some work on that, as are some others, to start to measure the outcomes and to look at a broad cost-benefit analysis, not just in dollars and cents, but in building and strengthening communities and having other positive outcomes.
A report was recently released that looked at the Hollow Water community healing program. That report includes a broad-based cost-benefit analysis. The Aboriginal Healing Foundation and the Solicitor General shared that evaluation. That report is again positive news, in the sense of showing that these are cost-effective interventions.
The Chairman: The Aboriginal Justice Strategy is in its final year of a five-year mandate. It has been extended for a period of one year. Is this level of funding for the Aboriginal Justice Strategy sufficient to meet the demands you receive from community groups?
Mr. Pentney: We have had consultations with provinces, territories and Aboriginal communities to examine the level and the need. We have found that there is a thirst for these programs. Acknowledging the current circumstance of the Government of Canada, we think that we could sustain an increase in programs to communities.
One thing that should be underlined is that the vast bulk of the money that flows through these programs goes directly into communities. There are no huge administrative bureaucracies administering these programs. We are getting money out to the communities to the extent possible, and within limits, consistent with the obligation to monitor, evaluate and assess.
Many of the professionals with whom we are involved are working to aid communities, to help them find their way through the thicket and develop effective programs. There is room to grow in this area. There is a thirst both from the provincial and territorial governments that now see the success of these programs and want to continue to support them. These programs are matched 50-50; every dollar invested by the federal government within the Aboriginal Justice Strategy is matched or exceeded. Saskatchewan government representatives would tell you, chapter and verse, about how far ahead of us they are in supporting these programs, as are the territories. There is room to grow.
The Chairman: Does that mean that the funding will be extended?
Mr. Pentney: We are certainly arguing as strenuously as we can for extension and expansion.
Senator Léger: You mentioned the successful land camps and you mentioned Burnt Church, New Brunswick, and I wanted to thank you for that.
The Chairman: This has been a very interesting presentation. I hope that we have become partners and that we can help each other to identify the needs, issues and challenges that we face. If we do not do something now, then I would prophesy that within 10 years we will face a greater problem, and we do not want that to happen here in Canada.
One of the biggest issues we face is stereotyping and latent racism. We can only change that by education. That cannot be legislated. Working together, we will hopefully be able to do something.
Mr. Pentney: As you review the material, if you have any questions or would like further information, please do not hesitate to contact us.
The committee adjourned.